


Taken Away

by AshStoryLover123



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020), The Old Guard (Movie 2020) RPF
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amputation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, BAMF Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Hurt/Comfort, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova is a Little Shit, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Soft Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Temporary Character Death, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27925834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshStoryLover123/pseuds/AshStoryLover123
Summary: You have my heart hayati. Guard it well.His life was his first and foremost but it was also Joe’s.It meant that when Nicky took up a sword to his enemies, he was defending not one but two lives, always. Perhaps Yusuf al Kaysani would have breath left in his body even after Niccolo de Genova breathed his last, but it would not be the same Yusuf that existed with Niccolo.They were their own, but also of each other.This is Nicky’s POV of Torn Apart, as requested. Nicky and Joe are separated at the lab. Angst with a happy reunion.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 191





	Taken Away

Nicky’s trying to take everything in, from the view through the windows to the bits of conversation between the men pushing them roughly, in hopes that it will be useful later. Joe’s doing nothing of the sort and when Nicky catches his eye, he’s smiling and Nicky immediately smiles back.

They are not caught in a particularly pleasant situation but he can still muster a smile for his Yusuf. 

They are pushed into a living room of sorts with a couple of sofas and a counter. There’s a camera in the corner of the room and Nicky marks two exits, though neither he nor Joe are in a position to free themselves. Copley stands in the corner of the room, brows furrowed with concern as he takes in the chains and guns. 

Nicky takes it then that this man has seen them in action, not just perceived the aftermath. Perhaps he could be swayed to flip sides through fear alone. 

Nicky shifts his attention back to the man speaking. He talks of the greater good and Nicky might have been inclined to believe him if the man had appeared before him 900 years ago. He’d gone to war and killed innocents for far less and he’s lived with that stain on his soul since. 

But now he can see clear as day, that this man just wishes for his money and the woman at his side claiming to be a doctor only desires fame and importance. 

The man, Merrick, steps close to Joe. Joe’s a tall, broad man and when he wishes to, he can make himself look downright terrifying. While Joe only appears in his dreams now, there was a time long ago when his face had starred in Nicky’s nightmares. 

And it’s a fraction of that face of nightmares that’s directed at Merrick now. It’s not the full extent of Joe’s anger, that perhaps only a handful of people had seen over the centuries, including him. Nevertheless it’s a clear warning that Merrick doesn’t pay any heed to. 

Do not step closer to him. 

The man steps closer and Nicky’s torn between the urge to laugh and roll his eyes. Joe headbuts him hard and Merrick loses his balance, careening backwards before catching himself on the table. Joe’s face is full of grim satisfaction, but Nicky is carefully watching Copley.

He does not appear concerned, even a little irked by Joe. If anything, there is a moment when Nicky can see awe in his face as he glances at Joe before surging forward towards Merrick. 

Merrick waves off the help coming his way and straightens up, picking up a sharp knife off the desk. Nicky’s entire focus centers on the knife and the implication of Merrick’s next words. Still he doesn’t truly believe that the slight man that seems to have been born in a suit with a bag of cash has a heart for bloody violence. 

Compared to many of Nicky’s prior encounters with people wishing to hurt them, this one had been fairly diplomatic, discounting the van full of dead bodies.

Merrick wields the knife with little to no precision as he brings it down on Joe. They are random stabs by an angry man that had his fragile ego crushed. Joe curses and Nicky shouts, lurching forward on instinct. 

But the man won’t stop tearing holes into his beloved’s skin until his blue shirt turns into a bloodstained mess. Only then does he withdraw and the doctor steps forward to observe Joe’s healing.

Nicky could care less for either of them as he watches Joe’s cuts heal immediately. Still, he needs Joe to look at him, needs the extra confirmation that he was alright. His eyes could deceive him, there could be cuts he could not see that perhaps hadn’t healed. 

But Joe wouldn’t deceive, would be the only one that wouldn’t. Before Joe, Nicky had entrusted that kind of faith in God. It was blasphemous to think he held that kind of faith for a man now, but it was the truth. What else could explain the fact that Nicky trusted Joe above his own instincts, his own senses, perhaps even himself when he was lost. 

Joe was his guiding light. His love had been Nicky’s salvation. His heart was Nicky’s greatest treasure.

Joe blinks slowly, owlishly, before focusing on Nicky. He leans in and Nicky gravitates towards him like he always has and their foreheads fall against each other. Words unspoken fill the air between them.

I’m alright. We’re alright. 

The man behind Nicky yanks him away and Merrick speaks again. Before, the man had attempted flattery, had attempted to present himself as a savior of humankind rather than a cold blooded businessman. Now, Merrick has no such reservations as he blatantly calls them mice.

It is not by far the most insulting thing Nicky has been called. His beloved has been called even worse and while Nicky’s blood still boils when he hears such things, he’s far too old to let it hold any sway over his heart or even his actions. Still, he lets a fraction of his anger, frozen over centuries, shine through and Merrick has the sense to stop pushing. 

He gestures for the tasers and while Nicky had already noticed them, he knows Joe had not. Joe’s eyes go wide, his fear written all over his face for all to see. It’s the only thing that has Nicky protesting futilely as the taser is pressed to his neck, turning his world dark. 

When Nicky awakens, he expects to see Joe’s eyes. While Nicky was the first to wake up in the mornings, Joe healed faster. Joe teased on occasion that it was because Nicky was like the rarest of art pieces that took time to restore. 

Nicky winces as feeling returns to the rest of his body in increments. There’s a blinding white light in the ceiling above him and a man’s hands on his abdomen. It’s an unfamiliar touch and Nicky tenses on instinct.

The fact that there was a strange man here, touching him while he was unconscious, was enough for Nicky to know that Joe was not here. Still, Nicky takes in the room, hoping to see a hint of his beloved, perhaps a door or a window.

He’s met with white walls and medical equipment that resembles torture apparatus. 

The hands creep further up his abdomen and Nicky shivers. The man’s hands retreat and Nicky finally turns to meet the gaze of the man with the invasive hands.

“This will go easier if you just relax and trust me,” the man says. 

The man has a nametag, Carl. He’s around Nicky’s height, far more lankier and perhaps a few years older than Nicky’s biological age.

“You cannot ask for trust. It can only be freely given,” Nicky replies. 

“Look I know you don’t want this,” the man starts.

“I can tell you do not want this either,” Nicky interjects.

The man pointedly looks away from Nicky and it’s answer enough. 

“You are being paid a lot for this,” Nicky ventures. 

The man nods as he fiddles with the test tubes that he had already managed to collect while Nicky was unconscious. Nicky suppresses his anger at the sight of them, the violation. Later, he will let himself feel this anger, when he has a proper outlet. 

“You need this money,” Nicky tries.

“Who doesn’t need money,” the man fires back. 

“Money earned this way will not stay with you,” Nicky says, turning away. 

“You sound like my grandfather or something,” the man blurts.

“I’m far far older than him,” Nicky replies. 

A small part of him enjoys the widening of the man’s eyes, the slight tremble in this fingers. The rest of him is just bone deep weary as he’s faced with yet another example of a world that still revolved around the wrong things. 

Money, fame, luxury. Like money could make them feel as rich as Nicky had when Joe had first slipped a band of badly twisted iron onto his finger as a sign of his love. What fame could compare to when Joe looked at him like Nicky was his whole world? What greater luxury could there be than sleeping with Yusuf’s arms banded around him? 

It’s tragic because everyone wished for happiness and almost everyone spent their entire life looking for it in the wrong things.

“How old are you,” the man asks.

Nicky’s content with not answering, letting the man prod at him in silence until the door swings open and Merrick walks in followed by numerous people in formal attire. Copley’s not amongst them, which is strange. Perhaps the man had fallen out with Merrick? 

“Copley,” Nicky says, pretending to squint at one of the suited men. He sees Merrick’s jaw tighten and it’s confirmation enough.

Now he can only hope Copley’s change of heart is extreme enough to reach out to Andy, Booker and Nile. That is if Merrick has left him alive. 

“I just saw your boyfriend,” Merrick sneers.

The relief that Joe is okay sends an instantaneous rush of warmth through his whole body. Still, he will not be completely calm until Joe is within his eyesight.

Nicky doesn’t let that worry show though. Their love is too beautiful to be used again as the weapon that it had been used as countless times in the past. 

“He must have been mighty pleased with that bruise on your forehead,” Nicky relies coolly.

The man turns red with anger. The doctor, Carl, beside him looks a little surprised that Nicky knew. There were few things though that Joe could do, that Nicky would find unexpected.

It didn’t make life beside him, loving him, any less exciting and wondrous. If anything, it was the only constant in Nicky’s ever changing world and that was a wondrous thing in itself.

“They wish to oversee the practical trials,” Merrick says.

Carl hesitates beside him, glancing down at Nicky briefly.

“I’m still doing preliminary tests,” Carl says. 

“Do them later,” Merrick snaps.

Carl doesn’t argue past that but it’s a miracle in itself. Nicky hadn’t been so easily swayed when he’d found himself on the wrong side of history. It’d taken numerous deaths, given and received followed by years of unlearning deeply ingrained prejudices to become a better person. 

It was a miracle that Joe had held his hand through all of that. Joe could wax poetic about Nicky’s kindness on more than one occasion but Nicky would never forget that it had been Joe that had first extended his hand for a truce, despite the fact that it had been Nicky who’d invaded his home. It had been Joe that had learned to speak Nicky’s language first, Joe that had seen past the hate Nicky had been taught to uncover the man he now was. 

While Nicky had done his best to put more good in this world since then, it had been Joe that had first shown him what that good truly was. 

“Get him ready,” Merrick says, disrupting Nicky’s thoughts.

Nicky thinks he sees a trace of apology in Carl’s gaze before his world goes dark once more. 

When Nicky wakes he is still strapped to the table. His face has been fitted with a mask of sorts and for a second he thinks it’s just an oxygen mask. But then as he inhales, he realizes that the mask isn’t supplying him anything.

It’s merely blocking out the surrounding air. 

Nicky’s first instinct is to take smaller breaths. His mouth has been sealed shut with a bind so he can’t take air in through it either. His arms and legs are strapped down, so he cannot so much as thrash as his body begs for air. His vision turns spotty and Nicky’s tempted to take a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

Instead he repeatedly clenches and unclenches his fingers, not bothering to keep his tiny choked off cries in as he runs out of air to breath. The spots consume his vision wholly and he enters the dark once more. 

When he returns to the land of the living, there’s no new air for him to breath in. He dies quickly, and it’s a relief as much as it is a pain. 

He remembers Joe’s words as consciousness fades from him fast.

You have my heart hayati. Guard it well. 

His life was his first and foremost but it was also Joe’s. They did not stake claim to each other like people claimed their possessions but their lives were tied nevertheless, had been since they’d first crossed blades. It meant that those that hurt one of the them hurt them both. 

It meant that when Nicky took up a sword to his enemies, he was defending not one but two lives, always. Perhaps Yusuf al Kaysani would have breath left in his body even after Niccolo de Genova breathed his last, but it would not be the same Yusuf that existed with Niccolo. 

They were their own, but also of each other. 

He comes to again with a gasp and it’s only after the twelfth time, a fact Nicky keeps track of to note the time passing, that he feels a well of anger and frustration growing within him. There is no science, nothing to learn from this. He had been around when people had committed atrocities in the name of healing and medicine. 

But surely humanity knew better by now.

Darkness falls across the room as Nicky dies his hundredth death from a lack of oxygen. He wages a mental bet with himself in his brief moments of consciousness. Andy will be here within the month and this behemoth of a building would be a charnel house. 

He can hear Booker’s voice in his head even as he wages the bet. 

A month? 500 for a week Nicky.

And Booker would most likely win that bet, as he won most with Nicky. Nicky wasn’t good at waging bets. But when he’d first encountered Booker, Booker had regarded him as some sort of pristine, untouchable pagan of goodness. He’d taken to Joe’s infectious warmth and wry humor easily, and had overcome his initial intimidation with Andy in a short while. 

But he’d regarded Nicky as something otherworldly even until Nicky had pretended his vice was gambling and Booker had seen that he wasn’t so perfect after all.

200 years later, he still wages paltry bets and only Joe knows the real reason why. Not that Nicky hadn’t found some amusement in finding exotic foods for Andy to try. 

Nicky tries but he eventually loses track of his deaths. The days begin to blur and it’s only remembering who he is, what he means to those he loves, what he means to Joe, that keeps him from spiraling into nothingness. He also has a purpose in this world, could still make it a better place in which things like this didn’t happen. 

That was another difference between him and the rest of his cadre, Joe included. Andy grew angry when she saw the worst the world had to offer. Booker buried his sorrows in liquor. Nicky did not know Nile well enough to know how she would deal with lost just yet, but her reaction to Quynh’s fate highlighted a similar processing of emotions to Andy. 

And Joe, his sweet Joe, took it straight to his heart and let himself feel every loss as his own. Nicky had seen Joe cycle through a tidal wave of emotions, from seething anger to gut wrenching sorrow when the world let him down time and time again. He felt things like age hadn’t cooled the fires in his heart, had perhaps even stoked them. Joe had said once, that he didn’t feel like he was truly living if he didn’t let himself feel time’s greatest joys and sorrows, and let them both rip into his heart in the same way.

Nicky was not immune to Joe’s hurt, but in every horrid thing the world presented to him, he saw something that needed to be fixed. He believed it was fate that opened his eyes to such things in the first place, so he could amend them. It broke his heart as much as it reaffirmed his purpose.

Andy thought it overtly optimistic, Booker was simply cynical, and Joe loved him for it as he loved everything about Nicky. 

Nicky simple couldn’t live any other way. It had been a desire for a purpose that had led him to the blood soaked sands of Jerusalem 900 years ago and that desire hadn’t changed. Nicky had just found a much better purpose.

To do good.

Nicky doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally breathes again. It feels like a lifetime, but any time apart from Joe often feels like that. His doctor, Carl, stands above him with his mouth twisted in a frown.

“Did you not find the answers you wanted,” Nicky asks.

The man just stares blankly. 

“Did you even know what you were looking for,” Nicky asks in a softer voice. 

Tears sparkle in the man’s eyes then and when Nicky wakes again, Carl is no longer beside him. Instead it’s another man, bigger than Carl had been with what seemed to be a personal agenda against Nicky.

“My family and I have hurt you in some way,” Nicky muses. 

“You put a bullet through my brother’s head. The bitch of a woman cut off two of my fingers,” the man spits out.

“If Andy cut off two of your fingers then she must have had good reason to,” Nicky says flatly. 

It wasn’t meant to aggravate the man. It was simply a statement of fact. None of them particularly relished in hurting others despite how much of their job demanded it. 

But the man’s anger grows near feral. He twists around to fetch a chainsaw from his table of torture devices. He sets it against Nicky’s arm and Nicky braces himself for the pain coming his way. 

“Do you regrow limbs,” the man asks, eyes gleaming.

“You are about to find out,” Nicky replies.

Again, the man grows angrier until Nicky can see nothing but the man’s anger in his eyes. He presses down, drawing first blood and then the whir of the machine starts up. 

Nicky doesn’t bother to hold back his scream or his useless thrashing as white hot pain races down his arm, and then suffocates his whole body. He feels like one large exposed nerve that’s being struck by lightning over and over again. His only thoughts, thoughts of Joe, short circuit until he cannot even form the whole monosyllabic name in his mind. 

And then it’s over, perhaps as quickly as it had begun. Nicky knows he’s drenched in sweat, and has lost his arm quite a few times before to know that regrowing it will not be easy. But he finds some peace in the fact that the blinding hot pain has receded. 

“That’s right. Feel a fraction of the pain you put me through,” the man says. 

Nicky doesn’t know what prompts him to take a page out of Joe’s book. He just misses him, this pain’s nothing to how much he misses him. 

“Considering the fingers are a fraction of the arm, I think it’s the other way around,” Nicky says. 

He gets a punch to the face for his efforts but it doesn’t matter, not when he can hear Joe’s warm infectious laughter in his ears. He even feels his lips twitch up into a smile for a split second, and the man notices.

“You filthy son of a bitch,” the man exclaims.

“Calling me derogatory names is not a testament to my character, but rather a reflection of yours,” Nicky interjects. 

The pain’s slowly beginning to shut down his body. He feels his thoughts slowing, his body numbing. His last thoughts are of Joe and he thinks perhaps he’s just as capable as Joe is at pissing people off when he wishes to.

The last time he and Joe had had this discussion was nearly a century ago. Perhaps it could be revisited. 

His musings are corroborated well by the second punch he gets to the face that takes his consciousness from him fully.

Nicky wakes to voices. A particularly anguished cry, one his very soul would respond to from death even, has him lurching upwards. A familiar hand settles on his shoulder, soothing him. 

Booker.

“How long,” he asks.

“Approximately a month,” Booker replies. 

Nicky thinks a little dizzily that he’d have won that bet. His thoughts evaporate however as another heart wrenching cry reaches his ears. He pushes past Booker on unsteady legs and finally, finally Joe is before him again.

He’s angrier than Nicky’s seen him in a long time if his punches are anything to go by. Nicky cannot see his face but he knows it’s twisted in a snarl, knows that no one on the receiving end of that snarl has walked away alive. 

Well, except Nicky in a way.

Nicky clutches the back of Joe’s shirt and the sensations that flood him nearly sends him to his knees. Joe is here, they were together again. The world hadn’t take his Joe away from him, not irrevocably.

If the world had managed to do that, well then perhaps Nicky would find this world beyond saving. If the world could truly be cruel enough to tear Nicky away from the other half of his soul, a cruelty Nicky thinks belongs to the worst realms of hell, then Nicky doesn’t think he could save it, would find his purpose an impossibility. 

It’s in thoughts like that, that he understands Andy. 

He clutches Joe’s shirt a little tighter to remind himself that Joe is still here, will always be here as long as Nicky was if there was even a speck of anything good and decent left in this world. He was not lost to Nicky. He would not be lost to Nicky.

Joe turns and Nicky wraps his arms around him, burying his face in the crook of Joe’s neck. Joe’s hands are gentle, the touches he uses when he cradles Nicky’s body with his own and whispers words of love in Nicky’s ear like they’re still courting each other after 900 years. 

Nicky wants more. He wants the hands of the man that holds Nicky tightly in his arms every night like nothing will tear them apart, and carries Nicky’s heart in a hold that can never be undone. 900 years and Nicky still wants thousands of years more. 

He burrows his head further and Joe’s arms finally wrap around him tightly, almost lifting him off the ground. Something like a strangled sob escapes Joe and Nicky draws back to catch a glimpse of those tear filled eyes.

They’re filled with anger and sorrow that most mortals would never know. His eyes are the windows to his soul after all, a soul that’s nearly a millennia old.

Nicky runs his hands over Joe’s body to make sure everything is healed and whole. He’s glad he finds no lingering hurts but it frustrates him too, that he cannot see the reasons for the new burdens on his love’s shoulders. He can only ask of it as his mind conjures nightmare after nightmare, and kiss Joe’s tears away until they stop for the time being. 

Joe lifts Nicky’s trembling hand and presses his lips to his palm, another to his wrist. Nicky shudders at the touch that doesn’t hurt, the touch that’s capable of healing his soul as his immortality heals his body. Joe does the same for Nicky’s other hand and his eyes promise more, more nights where Nicky will know nothing beyond Joe’s touch full of love.

Nicky isn’t an impatient man but he can hardly wait for the unspoken promise lingering in Joe’s eyes.

“Let’s go love,” Nicky says. 

“Anywhere with you,” Joe replies. 

Nicky wonders not for the first time how he can feel the whole of Joe’s heart in every word that crosses his lips.

Joe takes the scimitar off Andy’s hands, Nicky takes his broadsword from Booker and he lets some of his desire for vengeance seep through him, for Joe. Always for Joe. 

Besides, even angels could be vengeful after all. 

Joe knocks his shoulder into Nicky’s and Nicky smiles as they plunge into battle, in perfect tandem. He can’t help but think in that moment, when he’s aware of just how perfectly his movements match Joe’s, how well he knows this man beside him, that it was all destiny. 

And what a beautiful destiny it was.


End file.
